


Off-Switch

by StrivingArtist



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Amnesia, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Everyone Needs A Hug, M/M, Mild Cursing, New Relationship, Non-Linear Narrative, Sad Ending, This is my normal H/C without the C guys, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, don't read it, mental trauma, no one gets one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-11
Updated: 2017-10-11
Packaged: 2019-01-15 22:17:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12329979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrivingArtist/pseuds/StrivingArtist
Summary: Bucky didn’t lie to him.Tony yelled out five words and the Winter Soldier stopped in his tracks. The gun dropped to his side, his face relaxed, he fell into an easy parade rest, and his breathing levelled to normal. It was instant. It was seemingly painless. It was calm. It was the perfect solution.The sass and snark that had become a constant between them flickered and died when Tony saw the glassy hollowness of Bucky’s eyes.





	Off-Switch

**Author's Note:**

> warning you again, It's not a happy ending.

Goddamned Hydra.

They were way too serious about the cut off one head shtick. Yeah, it made a nice motto, but it was also damn annoying. They held to that phrase too dearly, and never knew how to give it a break. So the Avengers were, once again, fighting a splinter cell of Hydra assholes.

They weren’t even very good, which was probably why the team let them get that close to Bucky. None of them took it seriously enough.

They didn’t think a group of bargain bin, cast off, fourth string bastards could pack a punch.

And to be fair, the punching itself was actually pretty laughable.

The Avengers would have mopped up, taken out the trash, swept them under the rug -- whatever ridiculous metaphor the team decided on in the ‘post-ass-kicking, pre-shower, go-eat-too-much now, right now, everyone is starving, please hand over the food’ traditional meal. They had a system and they stuck with it. Bucky had folded in nicely in the six months he’d been with them despite the early hiccups. The team was working well.

But Goddamned Hyrdra knew where to hit.

One metal-armed punch shy of putting their leader on the ground and winning the day, the masked guy shouted something.

It didn’t stop the punch. At all. Might have made it worse.

Hydra guy was dead when he hit concrete.

Bucky tumbled sideways, thrown off for half a beat, before rising, cool and composed as only the Winter Soldier could be.

Steve ran closer to help his friend, and that made him the first target in the Winter Soldier’s newly murder-tinted sightlines. Since Cap was a hopeless optimist, it didn’t occur to him to attack, or shield himself, or do anything but keep jogging straight toward the gun aimed at his face.

Tony wasn’t that stupid.

Switching to the broadcast speakers on the suit, Tony didn’t hesitate. He shouted in Russian, using the code he’d promised he would if it was ever needed.

 

* * *

 

“Mister Stark--”

“Tony.”

“Mister Stark.” Bucky repeated, “What happened this morning--”

“That wasn’t on you Bucky. We should have known better than to joke about that.”

“Doesn’t matter whose fault it is, it still happened.” The incident hadn’t been too bad; a table thrown through a window, a bit of drama when Jarvis had to deploy a suit to catch it before it hit someone on the ground, and Steve tackling Bucky into a wall to contain the accidentally triggered Winter Soldier. The guy had only come in from the cold a few weeks earlier after seventy years of brainwashing, he was allowed to struggle. Tony conceded the point, and gestured for Bucky to continue. “Steve might not always be around to go wrestling me, Mister Stark --”

“Tony.”

“ _Mister Stark_. Hydra used to have trouble with me too. I’d get outta hand. I’d remember something, or notice something, and I’d have killed half the technicians before they could get a handler into the room. So there’s a way, if I’m a danger, there’s something you can do.”

Bucky pulled out a piece of paper that had been folded and creased like it was a beloved token.

“I wrote ‘em all down once I remembered. Reading it doesn’t count, but if you say em all to me -- you speak russian, don’t you Mister Stark?”

Tony raised an eyebrow and replied “Ya ne smushchayu sebya.”

“Never thought you would, Mister Stark.”

“Okay are you allergic to my first name Bucky bear? Because I can provide my own nicknames if that works better for you.”

“You should memorize this list. And if I’m ever like that again. If you think I’m gonna hurt someone that don’t deserve it. If you think I’m gonna hurt Stevie. If you ever think I’m gonna hurt you. You repeat that list.”

Tony skimmed over the scrap of paper-- _chernota. zavtra. ustupaya. rassvet. pobeg --_ and looked back to Bucky. “What’s it do to you?”

“It will stop me.”

“Will it hurt you?”

“No. Just stops whatever I’m doing. I’d appreciate you not using it in a fight unless I’m out of control, but don’t hesitate, Mister Stark.”

“ _Tony._ Come on, what do I have to do to get you to use my name?”

“Will you use that list if I’m a danger?”

“Yes, of course, that way nothing gets thrown through my windows right? And, by the by, I’ve solved for that now, so you can’t go tossing things into the world anymore. Does open up the option that someone or something would just go splat against the glass, but hey, that’ll be the next problem to solve. So. Yeah. What was I? You come with a control alt delete function. Right. Consider it memorized.”

“Thank you, Mister Stark.”

“Tony!”

 

* * *

 

Bucky didn’t lie to him.

Tony yelled out five words and the Winter Soldier stopped in his tracks. The gun dropped to his side, his face relaxed, he fell into an easy parade rest, and his breathing levelled to normal. It was instant. It was seemingly painless. It was calm. It was the perfect solution. Overall, still, fuck Hydra, but this one thing seemed to be well designed.

And Tony was happy to see it. Hours later, that thought ached in his chest like a weight, but in those first moments, there was nothing but relief. Fights against the Winter Soldier, even when it was Captain America and Iron Man doing it, even when it was Thor doing it, resulted in injuries and collateral damage. The Winter Soldier was beyond dangerous, and the code stopped him in a single breath.

It was a relief.

Tony glanced to confirm that Natasha had the other two Hydra bastards contained -- which she did, of course she did, the Black Widow was terrifying -- and landed next to the pair of soldiers.

The sass and snark that had become a constant between them flickered and died when Tony saw the glassy hollowness of Bucky’s eyes.

 

* * *

 

“I will add a backdoor into your arm and use it to make you slap yourself Bucky, don’t you think I won’t. I’ll wait until you’re accepting an award for saving baby kittens from the president and your arm will reach up and pinch his cheek. I can do it. You know I can do it. I might have already done it. Why do you provoke me Bucky bear?”

“I’d never provoke you, Mister Stark.”

“See, no. That. I know you now. It’s been two months. I know you’re a little shit. I know that grin.”

“No idea what you’re talking about. I’m sweet as anything, and pure enough for church. Tell ‘em Stevie.”

“Stay out of this Rogers, unless you can explain why your best friend used his Russian assassin cyborg skills to break into my room and douse every bit of clothing I own in strawberry candy scent!”

“Is that why it smells like that in here?”

“Shut it Rogers!” Tony knew by the unrepentant smirk that Bucky wouldn’t admit to it, and scowled, “I hope you realize, this means War.”

“Countin’ on it Mister Stark.”

 

* * *

 

God. Damned. Hyrda.

Ninety percent of what they did was a jumbled mess of plans smashed together, and the one thing they got right was the one thing that Tony had put to use.

The code calmed the Winter Soldier down alright.

It made him entirely docile.

Anything he was told to do, he did. Anything he wasn’t told to do, he didn’t.

That included eating and drinking and using the goddamn bathroom.

Someone had to order Bucky to walk to the bathroom and use it as usual every few hours.

Left unattended, the shell of Bucky Barnes stood at rest, waiting for further instructions.

It had been more than a week, and there hadn’t been any change.

Steve wasn’t mad at Tony, which was it’s own kind of painful. If he’d yelled and threatened, it would have forced Tony to do the same. Instead the pair sat in desolate grief, wishing that they could go backwards, helpless about how to go forwards.

Steve told him, “You’re one of my best friends, and I know that you and Bucky weren’t -- you hadn’t said anything, and I’m not gonna presume, but I don’t think you’d have done anything to him if you thought it woulda hurt him. He gave you that code because he was worried I’d get hurt. Sounds just like him. Don’t feel bad about it Tony, he probably didn’t know the full extent of what that code would do.”

On day ten without any change, Steve started hunting down Hydra cells, looking for notebooks, handlers, records, videos, anything that might give them a way in.

If there was an off switch, and that’s what Tony called it in his head, there had to be an on switch.

If it existed, they would find it.

After a month of looking, while Bucky stood like a marionette behind them, they found what it was, and wished they didn’t know.

 

* * *

 

“I don’t let people hand me things.”

“I panic when I have to bite down on anything.”

They both nodded and took a drink.

“I can barely take showers anymore.”

“I can’t put both my hands on armrests when I’m sitting in chairs.”

They winced, and drank again.

“I have more than two thousand kills in my record.”

“Amnesty International has my count as more than a million civilians in the four years before I became Iron Man.”

Bucky didn’t try to contest that, just drank as the game required. It was a messed up contest that their various therapists would have hated, but it got them through, knowing that they weren’t the only one in the building with some darkness in their history.

A confession, and then something in the same category to top it if possible.

“I slept my way through a Maxim calendar to get the press of my back because I kissed a guy in public.”

“I used to sell handjobs at the docks to pay for Stevie’s medicine, and ain’t ever told him that.”

That was Tony’s turn to nod and drink.

“I can’t call you by your first name, Mister Stark.”

“Hey! You know, I already knew that. So that’s not a confession. Try again.”

“Nah, but this part is, Mister Stark. It’s cause I’m the one that killed your parents.”

 

* * *

 

Captain America called Iron Man down to the cell where the lone hydra agent who hadn’t been fast enough with the cyanide was being held. He was bloodier than he’d been when they brought him in, and Steve’s hands were suspiciously clean considering he’d had to change clothes. The agent was cackling through his busted lip on the other side of the glass.

“What did he say, Cap? He know anything?”

“He’s lying.”

“What did Nat say about that?”

She was also sporting suspiciously clean hands where she leaned against the wall. “He isn’t,” she answered.

“So Mister Maniacal Laughter in there knows how to fix it?”

“Yes.”

“So why do you two look like you want to go tear off his fingernails one by one, assuming you haven’t already, that is? What do we have to do? Is is expensive? I’ve got that covered. Is it difficult? I’ve got that covered too. What do we do? How do we fix it?”

“Tony…”

“Don’t give me that face, tell me what I have to do to fix him! We’ll do it! Just tell me! I’m the rea-- tell me.”

Steve looked at the ground, and Natasha filled the silence.

“You have to put him in the Chair. You have to wipe him.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No. And we destroyed all the chairs. There’s another fix. What is it?”

“There isn’t Tony.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Steve nodded, and gestured toward the door of the cell.

A couple hours later, Tony returned to the main floor, hands tingling from where he had scrubbed them back to perfectly, immaculately clean.

 

* * *

 

“So this is where you’ve been hiding Buckaroo. How did you even get in here. How did Jarvis not notice? J, do you have a hole in your security system? Make a note J, I need to patch whatever hole that is.”

“Mister Stark. I didn’t think you’d want me on the main floor. Not now you know.”

“Okay, I’ll admit I didn’t handle that as well as I could have. Let’s blame the scotch. It can’t defend itself anyway. It’s a liquid. It’s can’t backtalk us unless we’re on Star Trek, which we’re not. And even then it’s only the really weird episodes with non newtonian fluids. But that is not the point. You know if I wanted you out of my sight I’d have just flown off to Malibu and checked in on the new house. Or I would have, you know, said something. I’d have told. Me being quiet isn’t really a thing I do. If I wanted you gone, you’d have known. You know that. Yeah?”

“Mister Stark you wouldn’t kick me out because you think that what you’re dealing with doesn’t count compared to anyone else, so no, I don’t know that. Pretty sure you’d gnaw your own leg off if the team needed it done. You haven’t got any kind of self care system, and don’t you tell me that you aren’t upset about this. I lived here for three months before I managed to tell ya, and I spent the whole time letting you be nice and fix up my arm and -- dammit, I teased you and I made jokes even though I knew what I had done. Don’t tell me you aren’t mad, of course you’re mad, you should be furious. Mister Stark, you should want to see me laid out on a slab, and if you say you don’t I’ll call you a liar.”

Tony swallowed.

“Scotch failed us last time, let’s go see if vodka treats us better.”

“What?”

“Vodka, come on, you speak Russian, you know what vodka is. Let’s see if we can find the answers at the bottom of a bottle.”

“You should hate me, Mister Stark.”

“Yeah probably. Might if you keep calling me Mister Stark.”

“I shouldn’t -- I deserve --”

“Shh. Vodka first, feelings second Bucky bear.”  

 

* * *

 

There wasn’t another option.

The Chair.

That’s it.

And since Steve smashed to hell every one he found, and every record of one he found, hoping to prevent anyone from building a new one, stealing Bucky, and reverting him to murder-mode, if they wanted to help Bucky, the Avengers had to build one.

Tony had to build one.

And then strap Bucky into it.

And fry his brain.

And wipe all memory of the last year.

He might get some of it back, eventually.

Bucky might eventually get whispers of the last year spent with the team. The scraps of data Tony could find showed that the chair most effectively wiped recent memories. It explained why Steve was the thing that kept crawling through; nothing important in Bucky’s head predated Steve Rogers.

Recent things? They’d be gone, and if they came back, it’d be jumbled. The week before Tony gave the command for the off switch was the least likely to return.

Not to mention that Bucky would know it was Tony that put him through that pain, and hate him for it at least as much as he hated Zola.

Not to mention that any progress he’d earned would be lost in a blaze of electricity.

Not to mention that two days before accidentally turning the man into a mindless drone, Tony spent several hours on Bucky’s lap, kissing him breathless.

 

* * *

 

“I didn’t… I thought that you… look… Mister--”

“I swear to God Bucky if you try to call me Mister Stark while you’re grinding against me and still panting from a hell of a kiss, I might actually carry through and kick you out of my tower.”

“I wasn’t gonna.”

“Yes you were.”

“It’s an old habit.”

“Say my name, Bucky.”

“I - I don’t…… Tony.”

“Huh. You know you’ve never said it before?”

“Tony.”

“That’s right. You just keep saying that. Nothing else. Keep saying my name.”

“Tony.”

“You’re gorgeous, you’re wonderful, you’re amazing. Don’t ever call me Mister Stark again. I’m not -- this isn’t -- it doesn’t have to be -- but you don’t ever call me anything but Tony again okay?”

“Tony. Tony. Tony, oh god, _Tony_.”

Tony grinned against Bucky’s neck.

“That’s right.”

 

* * *

 

 

Tony made a Chair.

Capital C.

A Chair.

He built a chair for the sole purpose of shoving Bucky Barnes into it and torturing him until it undid the off switch and turned him back into himself and scraped away his memories and forced him to reclaim every inch of recovery he had previously achieved. Yeah, it was for his own good; the docile state had side effects like weight loss, muscle loss, and the fact that the man hadn’t expressed a thought or taken independent action in two months time.

So Tony built the goddamned Chair.

He perfected it, made sure it was flawless, tested it more than every suit he’d ever worn, made adjustments, tested it again, and eventually had to admit that he couldn’t stall any longer.

Bucky obeyed when ordered to sit, bit down on the guard when told, sat complacently as Tony strapped his arms to the braces, and waited while Steve came to join them. Tony stared. All the progress Bucky had made was going to be torn away. Except. It already had been. That was how he talked himself into doing the wipe. Tony had already broken him. He’d already done the unspeakable.

At least this time Tony would know the consequences of his actions before he did it.

Tony let himself be weak for a moment, standing in the lab. He brushed his finger tips across the stubble on Bucky’s cheek, remembering the sound of his name as Bucky gasped, remembering the jokes and the teasing, and the honest conversations, remembering the fear and the trust that Tony had been allowed to see, remembering what he was about to burn away.

Maybe it would come back someday.

But it would be colored by the knowledge that Tony was the one to break him, and that in the end, Tony had done everything that made Bucky quiver. Bucky would remember or learn that Tony was the one to build the Chair, Tony was the one to use the code, Tony was the one to hurt him.

Even if Tony could withstand trying to find that connection again, it was too damaged to be anything but a bittersweet echo in his mind.

His fingers sat on Bucky’s cheek and elicited no reaction.

Tony flinched backwards when the doors opened for Steve.

“You read the packets I sent?”

Steve nodded, looking about as conflicted as Tony did. They all had roles to play to be sure that Bucky would be able to trust them, understand what was happening, and recover. Steve hated having to be the commander that Bucky would report to.

“You know what? Never mind, I should confirm that the connections on the face plate are--”

“Tony.”

“No, Steve, it’s fine. We’ll do this another day. Soldat--”

“Don’t.” Steve caught Tony’s arm where he was gesturing to the chair and hauled him into an embrace. “We have to do this. Buck wouldn’t… he wouldn’t want to be like this.”

“Yeah.” Tony’s answered was muffled in Steve’s chest. He shoved back, reaching for the controls, “Yeah. You know the role you have to play? You’re ready?” Steve nodded, and Tony typed the final command code.

Bucky screamed.

 

* * *

 

“Goddamn Hydra messing with my plans for the evening.”

“It’s so hard being a superhero isn’t it Bucky bear? Always having to go save people and be helpful.”

“So much easier when I was an assassin.”

“Used to just laze around.”

“Eating snacks.”

“Watching little baby assassins frolicking in the grass.”

“So much better than this.”

“Yeah.... Hey, Cap! Buck and I want to be evil now, cause we figure they have better hours. You okay with that?” Tony yelled to the front of the jet, prodding at Bucky’s leg.

“I’m not going to dignify that. We’re three minutes out. Get your heads in the game.”

“Aw, come on Stevie, these aren’t even the good Hydra thugs. I could take these guys down with one arm tied behind my back.”

“What if we tied the metal arm behind your back?” Tony whispered.

“You don’t have anything that could keep me restrained.”

“Is that a challenge to my engineering skills?”

“I’m just saying that if you can manage it, I’m sure I’ll be very impressed.”

They hadn’t told the team yet, drunk on the exhilaration of the newness, enjoying the kissing too much to want it interrupted by anything like collective teasing. They couldn’t start making out like teenagers in the back of the bus, but they held eye contact long enough, intensely enough, it kind of felt like they had by the time the jet was landing.

“Wrap this up fast soldier, I’ve got plans for you later.” Tony sent on a private line once the faceplate snapped shut.

“That a promise, Tony?” Bucky managed to wink without anyone seeing.

Then the fight began.

Goddamned Hydra.

 

* * *

 

The on switch worked.

Bucky was a shell again, but it was a new kind, and within a few days little glimpses of the man he’d been started emerging. Once he noticed no one punished him for eating as he wanted, he started taking sugar in his coffee. Once he realized he didn’t have to be escorted to every location, he went to the gym frequently. After a few weeks he started sleeping every night, and a few weeks more convinced him the bed wasn’t a trick.  

Tony handled the skirmishes that came up, filling in for Steve while the man tried to coax Bucky back to them.

Bucky recovered, slowly.

He still flinched whenever Tony got too close. The one time Tony touched Bucky’s wrist, they’d nearly had a full bore Winter Soldier on their hands. That hurt.

It wasn’t the worst of it.

“Captain Rogers requests that you perform standard maintenance on the arm, Mister Stark.”

Bucky was afraid of him, bone deep memory knowing the hurt Tony had inflicted long before his mind found the details.

And he was back to being Mister Stark.

“Yeah, okay, have a seat on the stool there.”

“Yes, Mister Stark.”

This time, Tony didn’t try to correct him.

 

 

 


End file.
